Sydney's Latino community is steamed up about the opening night
of the Spanish Film Festival, but not because of the sex-filled
comedy that will be on the big screen.

"They're already talking like, 'When's the tapas? When's the
flamenco?'" says festival director Natalia Ortiz. "And I'll say,
'At the opening night of the film festival. And the film is about
...' - and they're like, 'Yeah, yeah, whatever. So when is the
fiesta?'"

None of this fazes Ortiz, a Spaniard who moved to Australia a
decade ago. After eight years of organising the Spanish Film
Festival in Sydney, she is used to the laid-back ways of her
compadres.

There is a sense of anticipation among the Spanish-speaking
community, but Ortiz says, "They always wait until the last minute
to buy a ticket - as we do in Spain."

Those who do make it to Wednesday's opening night get to party
as well as see Pablo Berger's award-winning Torremolinos 73.
Based on a true story, the film follows the escapades of a
down-on-his-luck door-to-door salesman and his wife, who are
persuaded to make educational films in their bedroom for the
Scandinavian World Encyclopedia of Reproduction. As the salesman
discovers a deep passion for filmmaking, his wife, unbeknown to
them, becomes a sex symbol in Scandinavia.

Torremolinos 73 isn't deep and meaningful but is a lot of
fun, like another highlight of the festival, Joaquin Oristrell's
film Inconscientes (Unconscious).

Set in 1913, Inconscientes is a lush-looking, Sherlock
Holmes-style mystery that follows Alma and her brother-in-law
Salvador as they try to track down Alma's psychiatrist husband,
Leon. Leon, who has been studying with Sigmund Freud in Vienna, has
disappeared from Alma's life, even though she is about to have
their first child.

It helps that Alma is played by the beautiful Leonor Watling.
The 29-year-old Madrid-born actress is a favourite of famed Spanish
director Pedro Almodovar, who used her talents in Bad
Education and Talk to Her.

Watling says she was attracted to Inconscientes because,
"I thought it was really smart and it didn't indulge in just being
really intellectual and just making jokes about Freud and Jung.

"That's the risk of doing a script with literature kind of jokes
- that it can go to the other extreme and be really annoying," she
says.

"This script was right in the middle, with a very physical sense
of humour. My character was like a present for an actress. She's a
completely crazy, neurotic, quite unbearable kind of person. At the
same time, she's really honest and brave and lonely. She's
basically very, very lonely. It had lots of little corners to act,
a lot of twists and turns."

Watling put on five kilograms to play Alma, who is clumsy with
the weight of her unborn child. As Alma follows the trail of her
missing husband, she constantly bumps into doors and falls
over.

Ortiz says it's these dramatics and extreme emotions that
attract Australian audiences to Spanish cinema.

"I don't know if this sounds really arrogant, but I went to the
opening night of the French Film Festival and I saw the film and it
was really nice and it was very sophisticated and relaxed, and
everybody was having nice conversation ... and I was thinking,
'We'll never make a film like this!' We're always over the
top."